Ceren seemed to shake herself back into reality, looking about and blanching at the sight of the downed thugs. "Yes. Yes, you are right. We need to be moving."
She called out to Jubair, and the boy came out of the trees to join you. Ceren indicated that she was ready to go with you - more than ready after that attack. You make it back to the Lorespire without incident, and escort Ceren and Jubair to Historia -7. The leader of the Dataphiles thanks you for your help and asks that you wait while she has a word with Ceren and her grandson. Soon, Historia-7 returned, alone, and spoke.
"Thank you for taking care of this mission for me. Ceren tells me that she hasn't felt this alive in years, and that she is ready to undergo her surgery to remove the malfunctioning tech immediately. You are to be commended for your efforts in taking care of the thugs that the Bluerise Tower corporation sent after Ceren, and for her new identity. The death certificate...well, that is handled now. Ceren is as safe as we can make her. I believe you still have some Commencement missions to handle, so I will not detain you."
As you left the offices, a courier hailed you. He was carrying a small package, and a much larger, longer one. The small package contains a standard datajack and a credstick with 200 cr attached. The larger package contains a frostbite-class zero rifle, an older model but one in good condition. There was a note from Ceren thanking you for helping her and Jubair, and offering the rifle from 'her old days' as a gift.
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"Is anyone else interested in the datajack? I have had one on my modification to-do list for some time. You guys are free to fight over the rifle. Despite it being pretty retro, I am growing quite fond of my current rifle. It seems to be accurate enough for my purposes."
"I suggest we take a breather while we decide what to do next, some of you are looking a little rough."
After some discussion about who to visit next, you finally decide on the Acquisitives. The head of the Acquisitives kept his Starfinder offices and the headquarters of his personal mercenary unit, the Obsidian Spiders, at the same location, in a luxurious neighborhood located under Absalom Station's transparent dome.
The plain white doors of the office slide open to reveal a stark, dimly lit room. The chamber is bleak and expressionless in its emptiness—no vanities line its smooth black walls, and no signs of use mar its smooth black furniture. The only occupants of the suite are a bug-eyed tadpole wriggling in a glowing blue aquarium and a reptilian vesk seated behind an onyx desk. The vesk gestures to a number of chairs in front of him, his features sharply illuminated by the light of his desk’s green holoscreen. “The new graduates,” he greets, in a low and pleasant voice. “Good day. I am Radaszam, though since you are here, I should hope you already knew."
“I trust you are aware of our Society’s traditions, so I will cut to the point. I have a minor situation that needs resolution. One of our members, a human named Laboni, had a rather public altercation with a junk scavenger from the Spike. You might be more familiar with the scavenger than I, actually; he is a ysoki who fancifully calls himself Ratrod. I am told he runs a popular racing competition that has, hmm, several hundreds of thousands of viewers on the station’s infosphere. For some reason, Laboni felt the need to tell him that any ‘real’ mechanic could easily beat the garbage that Ratrod and his associates slap together. Now that Ratrod has issued an infosphere-wide demand that she race him and prove it, Laboni doubts she can back that claim up."
“Embarrassing, isn’t it? Not really the sort of troublemaker that suits our Society. Perhaps she would be better suited to the bottom of a trash compactor... Well, we cannot afford to throw her out, not after so many Starfinders were lost in the Scoured Stars. Besides, we can’t let people think we are so weak that we can’t control our own members, or that we cannot stand up to a scrapyard junker. No, I would like you to assist Laboni in winning this race. Show our detractors that even the least of our Society is not someone to be trifled with.”
"Straight to the point, eh? Good, because you don't have a lot of time. I was hoping you'd get here soon, because the race is in a couple of hours. It'll take you a half hour just to get to Botscrap at this time of day, so you'd best hurry. You'll figure out what to do when you get there. On the job training's the best sort there is!"
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"Boo-gety Boo-gety Boo-gety, let's go racing fellas Kat adds, completely deadpan.
Once they leave Radaszam's office, Kat is visibly more relaxed, after being formal with their new boss.
"Oh, man. I can't believe we get to go participate with the race. The clubs I worked in before always had them on the screens. I watch all the time now. She carries on as they travel to Botscrap, talking about favorite drivers and big wrecks to whoever will listen.
Ratrod’s racing circuit is a hollowed-out section of a mountain of spare parts in Botscrap, the track specifically sanctioned by the ysoki-dominated Salvage Union mercenary gang that controls most of the yards. When you arrive at the competitors’ entrance, a small robot informs you of Laboni's pit location, and of the basic rules of the race:
Laboni wasn't hard to pick out at her pit station, as she was dressed in a bright white lab coat over paisley clothing. She was a human female in her late teens, and she looked at you a little sheepishly as you approached.
"My crew seems to have mistaken the date of the race. Can one of you lend a hand and grab this fairing while I try and stabilize it? Thanks."
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so, you really like races then he says time to see one from the stands I suppose he says.
"I hope we'll have more of a hands on experience than sitting in the stands, Professor" Kat replies.
On arrival, Kat eagerly looks around at the piles of scrap, the track and everything going on. "It looks even worse in person. It's perfect!"
When they encounter Laboni, Kat absentmindedly introduces herself while examining the vehicle.
"I know these are built with scrap, but this is what you're going to use to try to win this thing?"
Kat will add to the professor's request for parts by asking for more specific items to replace to try and improve the racer.
"This port phase emitter is shot, we'll need at least a class 5. Theres a reason these thermal couplers were in the junkyard, these Heisenberg relays aren't near the capacity you'll need, we need bigger or more of them.
"Oh, wow, thanks I really appreciate this. So, you really want to help? I don't suppose any of you are any good at remote piloting a junkracer? Or firing weapons? I'm a good mechanic, but despite my tongue speeding off faster than my brain can think, I'm not that great of a pilot. According to the rules, I can have a pilot and a couple of gunners helping me out. I'll also need some help scavenging around this place looking for weapons or parts to improve this junkracer. Any help you can give would be amazing."
Everyone can have up to 4 pre-race actions, each of which needs to be accompanied by an appropriate roll. You can try a single action multiple times, but try and be aware that if you have 4 people wanting to make engineering checks, don't use all of our actions on engineering. Spread them around a bit.
Please post no more than 2 rounds' actions at a time, as you might want to see what successes others have had before you move on. ALL actions will help here, so even the social or non-engineering/computers folks should be useful.
Improve Laboni's junkracer
You can spend an action to attempt a Computers, Engineering, Perception, or Physical Science check to find parts in the scrapyard and install them in Laboni’sracer; the foolwoing improvements can be made. These are cumulative bonuses, so the same improvement can be made multiple times.
Laboni's junkracer currently has the following stats:
Speed 40 ft., full 400 ft.
EAC 10; KAC 12
Attack energy weapon (–4 to Piloting)
Modifiers +2 Piloting, –3 attack
Investigating the competition
You can scout out your opponents with Sense Motive checks, or scope out their vehicles with an Engineering check. On a successful check, you gain one useful bit of information about the opponent or their vehicle.
Sabotage
You can attempt to sabotage an opponent's vehicle, but you must dodge the eyes of everyone in the stadium and the pilot in question. This requires a Stealth check, followed by an Engineering check to successfully sabotage the vehicle. There are penalties for being caught.
Socialization
You can take the time to chat up the other pilots. This might prove beneficial in the long term. Use whatever social skill you feel appropriate.
"Oh, by the way, I just got the final list of racers for this run. in addition to me and Ratrod, there is a gnome named Lemgem, a fairly famous ryphorian former soldier named Nyizin, a damaya lushunta called Orsis, and Velocity, a cold as nails android. That last one has a nasty habit of installing heavy weaponry and spending the entire race shooing at the other pilots, winning be damned!"
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We will help where we can Adrion says but you must learn restraint he listens as he gets his hands dirty assisting Kat5e.
They may be problematic. we might need to divide and concur, but that should be easier than normal considering they are already enemies, but allies would be nice as well.
Adrion attempts to get better shielding on the racer (EAC)
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Seren shrugs, racers weren't her forte but she'd be damned if she was going to sit and twiddle her thumbs. She rolls up her sleeves and gets stuck in helping out Kat5e.
Oh dear I see what you mean... let's see if we can tweak these sorry excuses for propulsion units...
Yup, ran a multisubsonic inversion on the pre-ignition subcircuits, should improve the kinetic flowthrough by ten percent or so....
Round 1
Adrion - attempted to improve EAC (failed)
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve piloting (success)
Kat5e - attempted to improve speed (success)
Rin -
Seren - attempted to improve speed (success)
Round 2
Adrion -
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (failed)
Kat5e -
Rin -
Seren - attempted to improve speed (success)
Round 3
Adrion -
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (success)
Kat5e -
Rin -
Seren -
Round 4
Adrion -
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (success)
Kat5e -
Rin -
Seren -
Laboni's junkracer currently has the following stats:
Speed 65 ft., full 650 ft.
EAC 10; KAC 12
Attack energy weapon (–4 to Piloting)
Modifiers +4 Piloting, –3 attack
Can I use my memory module to reroll this? Not sure if assisting would be considered "recall knowledge". Also, my round 2 results weren't listed in the summary.
Pon sneaks over to Ratrod's Area and attempts to sabotage his racer.
Round 1
Adrion - attempted to improve EAC (failed)
Freen - attempted to sabotage Ratrod (failed)
Gelub - attempted to improve piloting (success)
Kat5e - attempted to improve speed (success)
Rin - attempted to ... (success)
Seren - attempted to improve speed (success)
Round 2
Adrion - attempted to improve EAC (success)
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (failed)
Kat5e - attempted to improve attack (success)
Rin - attempted to ... (failed)
Seren - attempted to improve speed (success)
Round 3
Adrion - attempted to mount energy weapon (failed)
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (success)
Kat5e - aid other (failed)
Rin -
Seren -
Round 4
Adrion - attempted to mount kinetic weapon (failed)
Freen -
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (success)
Kat5e -
Rin -
Seren -
Laboni's junkracer currently has the following stats:
Speed 65 ft., full 650 ft.
EAC 12; KAC 12
Attack energy weapon (–4 to Piloting)
Modifiers +4 Piloting, –1 attack
Round 1
Adrion - attempted to improve EAC (succeed with aid)
Freen - attempted to sabotage Ratrod (failed)
Gelub - attempted to improve piloting (success)
Kat5e - attempted to improve speed (success)
Rin - attempted to aid Adrion (success)
Seren - attempted to improve speed (success)
Round 2
Adrion - attempted to improve EAC (success)
Freen - attempted to improve piloting modifier (failed)
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (failed)
Kat5e - attempted to improve attack (success)
Rin - attempted to ... (failed)
Seren - attempted to improve speed (success)
Round 3
Adrion - attempted to mount energy weapon (failed)
Freen - attempted to improve piloting modifier (success)
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (success)
Kat5e - aid other (failed)
Rin - attempted to improve EAC (success)
Seren - attempted to improve EAC (success)
Round 4
Adrion - attempted to mount kinetic weapon (failed)
Freen - attempted to improve piloting modifier (success)
Gelub - attempted to improve speed (success)
Kat5e - attempted to mount a new kinetic weapon (failed)
Rin - attempted to improve KAC (success)
Seren - attempted to improve KAC (Failed)
Laboni's junkracer currently has the following stats:
Speed 65 ft., full 650 ft.
EAC 18; KAC 14
Attack energy weapon (–4 to Piloting)
Modifiers +6 Piloting, –1 attack
The junkracer was as fast as you could make it, and with the other upgrades, should be pretty well-shielded from weapons fire. Too bad you weren't able to get another weapon monted to allow two of you to shoot, but at least the remte piloting rig had been upgraded a bit.
It seemed as if time had flown by because a small robot showed up at the pit to tell Laboni it was time for the race. She wheeled her custom racer away, and gave you a thumbs up. Hopefully all your hard work would pay off!
Check the slides and you will see a new map! We will be running counterclockwise around the track, and each division is 25 feet, so 3000 feet in all. Please DO NOT move teh tokens on the race map. I will do all movement based on piloting and gunnery checks. The pilots and their colors are:
Laboni - YOU/blue
Ratrod - ysoki/black
Velocity - android/yellow
Nyizin - rhyphorian/red
Orsis - lashunta/pale green
Lemgem - gnome/pink
This will be a long encounter, so hang on tight!
Do you guys have your roles in place? We need a pilot and a gunner. If you aren't acting as one of these roles, you can use Aid Other actions to boost. Gunnery tends to need the most help, as the remote rig has hefty penalties for shooting.
THE RACE
Each turn of the race includes two phases: First, all the competitors fire their weapons at their chosen targets. Second, all the pilots attempt Piloting checks to determine their positions in the race. Any number of players can each control a single weapon during the firing phase, whereas only one player can act during the piloting phase. You can use the Aid Other action to help any single player during any phase, but you may only aid a single player per turn. Actions during each of the race phases occur simultaneously, so there is no need to determine an order or initiative.
Phase 1: All racers may fire their weapons by rolling a ranged attack roll against their target competitor’s vehicle EAC (for energy weapons) or KAC (for kinetic weapons), with a bonus or penalty equal to the vehicle’s attack modifier. Each weapon can be fired only once per round. Successful weapon attacks impose Piloting penalties (usually – 4, unless the weapon was upgraded using one of the PCs’ prerace actions) that last for the rest of the turn.
Phase 2: Once all the weapons have been fired and the relevant Piloting penalties have been applied to each driver, each racer must attempt a DC 16 Piloting check, modified by the vehicle’s Piloting bonus. Success means the vehicle moves at its full speed along the track (for the purposes of this race, assume a junkracer’s full speed is equal to the vehicle’s speed × 10). Failure causes the vehicle to crash into piles of junk on the sidelines, forcing it to move at half speed (the vehicle’s speed × 5) on the circuit; failure by more than 10 points causes the vehicle to get stuck and not move at all for that round.